Autodesk released 3ds Max 2019.2

3ds Max has gone through some exciting evolutions this past year including its newest release 2019.2.

Autodesk 3ds Max 2019.2 focuses on further improving fluids while adding data channel support for Autodesk Arnold, the ability to load multiple simulations simultaneously, and the ability to process specific parts of a simulation.

Additional improvements have been made to Alembic support including an improved preview window and MaxScript exposure as well as support for instances and compatibility with Autodesk Maya for extra UV channels.

Textures can also now be baked with Arnold while Trackview and SceneExplorer are windowed again.

So, here's what new with 3ds Max 2019.2

Fluids update

It's been a year since we introduced Fluids into 3ds Max.

Since our introduction of fluids natively into our 3ds Max 2018.3 Update, we haven't stood still. Over the course of the past year, we have updated this built-in solution with more and more features, based on much input from our beta community.

- The new Fluid Loader is an object that makes it easy to load and manipulate fluid simulation data. With the Fluids Loader, you can load cached fluid simulations, adjust the transform of the sim, offset the playback, assign materials and render the sim.

- We added support for rendering fluids data channels such as Vorticity, Density, Age, etc. with Arnold

- You can adjust the meshing parameters for liquid and foam of a loader and the render settings such as data channels mentioned above. Even reuse simulations and control each playback independently.

- When working with complex simulations, you may have many emitters, colliders, and motion fields. This can make iterating on fluid simulations cumbersome, so we have added the ability to disable and enable emitters, colliders, motion fields, etc. for faster, more finely controlled sims.

Open standards Alembic & OSL Improvements

Alembic support has been updated to version 1.7.5, with this comes with improvements to export and speed.

- Alembic UV export is now compatible with Maya by default

- Support for instances allows files to be much smaller while maintaining complexity and can dramatically improve export speed.

- We have included a better tree-view arrangement and searching in the Alembic Inspector Window.

-The OSL editor now displays line numbers.

- In the OSL editor, the “Compile” shortcut is changed from Ctrl+S to F7, and Ctrl+S is now the much more sensible “Save”.

- The OSL editor now highlights matching brackets, e.g. if the cursor is on a left parenthesis, the matching right parenthesis is highlighted.

Arnold 5.2 Update

Arnold 5.2 delivers several usability and performance enhancements, plus significant new features to improve workflows.

- Texture Baking is now supported with the render-to-texture workflow.

- Shade enhancements include a new Cell Noise shader and new Sheen function in the Standard Surface shader to render cloth-like microfiber materials or the peach fuzz.

- RGB clamping in clamp shader can now be configured to either a scalar or color mode.

- Edge detection can be controlled in Toon Shader using the STRING type user data, toon_id.

- The stability and usability of the high-quality Noice denoiser has been improved.

New Subscription Benefits - Autodesk Drive

Autodesk Drive is a cloud storage solution that allows you to securely store, preview, and share your 2D and 3D design data.It supports 60+ types of Autodesk and 3rd party files for viewing and organizing, preserving your local storage where you only download when you need to. More on Autodesk Drive Here

Community Updates

Autodesk is committed to responding quickly to 3ds Max user feedback.

That's why this release includes over 70 fixes, many of which were submitted by the 3ds Max user community at 3dsmaxfeedback.autodesk.com.

- Track View and Scene Explorer panels are now windowed again.

- Data Channel can now output vertex alpha.

- Projects workflow, users can have more than 60 paths associated with a project.

- New 3ds Max security tools set offer protection against the CRP and ALC 3rd party scripts.